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June 2009

June 30, 2009

Cute and fun! That's how I would describe these little guys. I saw them on Dawn's blog here (see June 4th) - she has a video tutorial that you should totally check out! I love how she made little purses using punches! I am missing a couple of the punches she used to make them, so I decided to modify mine. Here's what I ended up with! Feel free to copy or modify as you like!

Oh and in case you are curious as to what I used and you want a write up of all the measurements, here they are!

Classic Inks I used: Chocolate Chip...of course! (#100908 ), Baja Breeze (In colour from this year - sold out!), Mellow Moss (#102774), and Bashful Blue (#105209). Remember - today (June 30th) is the LAST DAY to order things that won't be in the new catalogue - and as an added bonus, I still have that free stamp set up for grabs - and no one entered in the draw! All you have to do is place an order online (if you are having troubles, give me a call!). I will extend the deadline to THIS FRIDAY so that if you see any goodies in the NEW catalogue you can wait for it before you place your order.

Sorry about my fingers! I wanted to have them laid flat for you to see!

These were perfect for me to write little thank you notes for my colleagues - they really liked them! (or at least they pretended to :P) Have fun trying these little guys out :)

June 28, 2009

Today was an awesome day! It started off with a 10km run around Stanley Park with my sister, brother-in-law, and husband. We would run for 10 min and then walk for 1min - I have not ran that far in a while! (gonna hurt tomorrow :P) My sister and I were supposed to do a 10km run this Wednesday but I just found out yesterday that is has been cancelled - thank God! I have not been running much lately. Anthony and I have been trying this P90X workout and eating 'regime' and it's been going pretty well so far. The hardest thing for me is the food - you know how much I love chocolate! Last time I went for a 20 minute run and was sore for two days! (sooooo not looking forward to tomorrow :P)

Anywho - afterwards we went to play pétanques (the French version of Bocce) at a really nice park complete with a lake! Here's a pic of the Frenchies playing :)

Anthony and I actually won the games we played! (the practice at the beach yesterday really helped) We also learned a couple rules that we hadn't known before!

And the last part of the day was a barbeque at my parents' place. The food was great but the funniest part was that we were all anxiously waiting for my sister and her family to arrive (really my nephew and niece were the ones that everyone was super anxious and excited to see - so much that my sister waited outside for their car to arrive).

And now for Val's crazy awesome card - she drew the playing cards herself! Super artistic!

The '1 and 21' cards are all her - the third one she was inspired by a couple of the stamp sets from the catalogue. Pretty neat huh? Way to go Val!

June 27, 2009

Today we spent the day with Anthony's little brother (who just finished grade 7!). We went to the beach (where we had a good time playing raquet ball, bocce and relaxing - I checked out some ideas from the SU demo magazine :P), had sushi for dinner, watched a movie and I made a card for his 'graduation' that I had seen from the magazine :) It was fun to make, and it's cute too! Hope you like it :)

I feel like the left side is too empty, so I will likely end up adding something else to it. Just thought I would share it with you anyways! I hope you don't mind :P

The punches I used are the following:

* Scallop circle for the wings

* 1 and 3/8 cirlce for the tummy (the original used 1 and 3/4 but I don't have that one),

* Round tab for the head

* 1/2 circle for the eyes (behind the googly eyes :P)

* Small tag and word window for the hat

* 5-petal flower for the beak

* Boho blossoms for the feet.

To be honest, I cheated for the beak and feet - I don't have those two punches yet (the 5 petal is on my wish list!) so I used my punch index to trace them.

The colours I used for the owl are Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip, Basic Black, Barely Banana (I think), and Really Rust. The background is Bashful Blue and the card itself is whisper white on the first one and very vanilla on the second - I don't know why that just reminded me of Dirty Diana by Michael Jackson (so sad - so much talent! such a rough life).

I hope the first day of your weekend went well, and the best part is there's still one more day to go! woooohoooo!!!! (we'll make that the reason for the second owl :D) And the other great part about this week is that Wednesday is CANADA DAY!!!! :D (for some of us that also means a shortened work week!!!)

June 26, 2009

let me know if you are planning on coming over! If you've already been over to my place then pop on by and bring something to work on :) You are more than welcome to bring friends - the more the merrier! Bring treats to share if you'd like (any chocolate will be welcomed :P )

June 25, 2009

I thought I would give a quick step-by-step to do list for embossing just as a review for some or as a tutorial for others. It took me a few tries before I got the hang of it - but now I absolutely love it and it is a LOT easier! (so for those of you who are having trouble right now - don't give up! )

Step 1

This is the one that I am the WORST at remembering. Rub your cardstock with the Embossing Buddy (# 103083) to get rid of the static. The first few times I kept forgetting to do this so I would always end up with powder on my paper as well as on my image. Sometimes you might want this because it does give a cool 'snowy' effect, but not if you want a clear, crisp image. A friend of mine uses Bounce sheets and says they work great - I've never tried them before, but if you don't have the Embossing Buddy yet, try it out and let me know!

Step 2

Stamp your image using VersaMark (clear, sticky ink pad) or Craft ink (very juicy, takes a long time to dry so is good for embossing #102283 and 101731).

Step 3

Pour your embossing powder over your stamped image. Shake off the excess powder back into the container (using a Powder Pal is really handy - # 102197). Flick the paper with your finger if you have a lot sticking to the page

You can see on this one the flecks of white on the black cardstock that disappears after I flicked the paper! (not easy to do if you've forgotten step 1!)

Step 4

Using your heat gun (it's really the easiest thing to use - if you don't have one yet, you can try the stove - just be careful you don't burn yourself. A hair dryer on low might work but I haven't tried it), hold it over the image, moving it around so you don't stay in one spot tooo long

This picture is the one that I took using the versamark because it is easier to see the change in colour of the powder that tells you when it's done :)

And that's all there is to it! Once you get the hang of it you'll be hooked! You can also use different colour craft inks with the clear powder, or if you are someone who likes silver, gold, or black you can buy the powders in those colours too - they look fabulous!

Embossing is great for so many things! You can use it to create a background (see my post here) or to add texture to an image (see here).

Feel free to email me pictures of your projects! I would love to add them to this post :)

Zip-lining was awesome! And we managed to get some pictures too! It was a little stressful getting there with Anthony finishing work and trying to get through traffic and up the mountain in time for our 'tour' but we made it! woohoo!!!

Here we are with our cool gear on :)

Just hanging out :P and me having fun posing for the camera :D

A colleague of mine got a short video clip of us coming into the 'braking area' of the second speedy line - it's pretty cool!

Oh yeah! After our zipping we saw the two grizzlies that were orphaned and live at the top of the mountain. Apparently we just missed them playing - they were napping but heard us enough to pop their heads up for a photo.

Did I mention that this was only part 1 of the evening? We also had a delicious dinner and some good times with my colleagues and their spouses. It was a buffet style shindig and every table around us kept getting called up - except for us! We took matters into our own hands (we were hungry!) and just got up and went. The line was pretty long, so my colleague's wife and I decided - hey, why not get some dessert while we're waiting!?! BEST IDEA EVER!!! The chocolate cake (what else would I get!?! :P) was DELICIOUS!!! You know how food takes sooo good when you are hungry...well just imagine having chocolate cake then you know it is = AWESOME. The dinner was good, but by the time we were ready for dessert - guess what?! There was NO MORE CHOCOLATE CAKE!! They ran out!!! Can you believe it!?! Obviously chocolate is going to be the most popular choice. Which is why - thanks to Robyn and our disregard for public opinion - I had my chocolate cake and LOVED it :) I could have still gone for a second piece...so maybe it was a good thing they ran out :P

At one point, Anthony and I went outside to take in the view and I took a couple shots. Here they are for your viewing pleasure :) You can see why we're in Beautiful Bristish Columbia - breathtaking!!!

Thanks go to my school for treating us to a great evening! I recommend that you go out and have some chocolate ! hihihi (or use some chocolate chip paper :P)

June 24, 2009

After making the card from yesterday's post at the technique class, we got to have fun with embossing and more fun with the big shot!

Here is Karen's pillow box

She left hers open so that she can put something inside later...

And here is Val's (I liked how she used the scallop oval punch)

These cute little 'boxes' are so fun and versatile! You never know what's going to be inside one until you open it up! hmmmm....chocolate....or jewellry... :P

Both ladies used my FAVOURITE set (you guessed it - Embrace Life!) and Karen used the 'for you' from the Great Friend set (occasions mini). How they did it will be part of today's tutorial :) However, because of today's staff party, I got home later than usual and am pooped! I will post the promised tutorial and pictures of our adventures later in the afternoon so be sure to check back then - sorry for the delay!

June 23, 2009

Here it is! This is the sample card that I came up with (I got the idea from the magazine that Stampin Up demos get in the mail once a month - another perk! :D):

I thought I would show a couple different variations! Here is the front of Karen's card - I LOVE her writing!

The inside of Val's card (love the idea of using the frame created by the top note!) One of the techniques from the class was using the stampin' write markers (you can buy them individually or all of them together in a case) and blender pens. You can see it gives a kind of watercolour effect it gives to the flower. Neat huh!?!

Check back tomorrow because I will be posting a cute 3D project and a tutorial! (I know, it's been a while since the last tutorial!). You'll also get to hear about my adventures! I am super excited for tomorrow - my hubby and I are going to be trying out the zip lines at Grouse Mountain as part of my school's year-end staff party! The last (and first) time I went zip-lining was in France from one cliff to another - definitely a huge thrill! We'll see if I can take pictures to show you :)

June 22, 2009

I said that you would get to see the cute shirts that Valérie made so here they are! I got the idea for this project from this blog - there's even a video tutorial to show you how to make it :)

Notice the matching pen?!

Here's the sample one I made using Candy Lane dsp and ridinghood red cardstock (both retiring soon!): and the inside: (I couldn't find a pen that I could take a part and was see through inside so that I could make it match...ah well!)

I know I already said I had a great time yesterday so I hope you all had a great weekend too! And there is something to look forward to at the end of this week - Friday night is CROP NIGHT!!! woohoooo!!! Hopefully I will see you then :D After such an awesome afternoon I am definitely looking forward to Friday :)

p.s. for those of you who are unsure what a 'crop night' is - it's basically a time to work on whatever project you like, you bring your own stuff, you can use my tools, and it's social and fun :) Are you excited or what!?!

June 21, 2009

1. Today's Technique Class was a BLAST!!! I had SO much fun and learned some cool things too! (as you will soon see!)

2. I had a nice chill dinner with my mom, aunt, husband, and of course..dad. The nicest part was playing Sudoku with my Dad (his present) and teaching my mom the cool thing I learned from Valerie today!

sooo....today I will post about the super cute origami t-shirt that was so fun to make! (and cute enough to make my mom want to make it - several times!)

Valeri was kind enough to show me how (and send me a link with a tutorial) and then I added it onto the card I was making for my dad. (sorry about the low light - I was in a rush to take the pic between the technique class and the dinner).

The paper is actually the inside of a business envelope - pretty neat desigh eh?

I used my white glue (Tombow) to adhere it to the card, smudged some on the tie, and of course could not find my amazing eraser - you know the one that can ERASE GLUE!!! (I know - way cool. And just wait till you actually try it!). So now that smudge was intentional, because of course you get your tie dirty dad...right? (that's if he even notices it :P)

So what do you think? Is that cute or what!?! And with a couple of attempts, even I managed to make it! (albeit a less perfect one that Valerie's but hey! I will take what I can get!)

So my mom hates me taking her picture but I did manage to sneak one of her making her little shirts. I would LOVE to post her making one because she looked so cute and into it, but I think she might kill me if I do eek! :S So instead, I will show you one of the ones she made (using recycled paper for her trial runs :D) Pretty good eh?

Be sure to check back tomorrow so that you can see the awesome ones that Valerie made :) There will also be a neat gift idea/project that is not hard to make. In the next few days I will also show pictures of the card that we made for class and a tutorial so check back soon!